


Brain Problem Situation

by riptheh



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, NOT noncon, Really dark, Romance, Spoilers for The Timeless Children, Thoschei, Torture, basically exploring the development and dissolution of their relationship, exploration of their relationship, similar ending to the timeless children be warned, snippets of their childhood & romance interlaced through current narrative, we just take a different path to get there, wow surprisingly other than like.....a kiss there's nothing sexual in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riptheh/pseuds/riptheh
Summary: “Had enough?”The question is redundant; it’s not up to her. She grins anyway, dredging up the last of her self respect, the last of her courage and hatred, the last of anything she has left.“Never,” she spits.He shrugs, “If you say so,” and jerks the lever down.Her screams echo throughout the entire panopticon.-The Master uses a different tactic to get the truth out of the Doctor.
Relationships: The Doctor | Theta Sigma/The Master | Koschei (Doctor Who: Academy Era), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 179





	Brain Problem Situation

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again with another wild fic! if you guys like dark thoschei, this is for you. warning: here there are not happy endings. Only darkness and angst. And a little hurt/comfort to spice things up.
> 
> Oh, and for added experience, I highly recommend listening to 'Brain Problem Situation' and 'Careful What You Pack' by they might be giants. Those are, you know, the vibes,

He wakes her roughly from the Matrix, and she knows the moment she comes to that it’s not over. No—she should have known before, should always have known, because it’s never over, not with him. Not when there’s a trail of torn up pieces between them, trashed friendship and could-have-beens littering their lives.

For a moment, she still thinks she’s stuck in the paralyzing field. Then she thinks that she’s been freed, before realizing that neither of those are quite right. She’s been moved, yes, but she’s still trapped, this time with wiggle room. Blue-white bands of light still encircle her, but a different energy radiates off of them. They don’t constrain her, not really, but she knows immediately not to touch. She can smell the ozone in the air.

The Master hasn’t even taken the courtesy of waiting by her side. He’s off in the corner, fiddling with a machine that she doesn’t recognize, but he must know the moment that her eyes open, because he spins around and gives her a face-splitting grin.

“Doctor!” He slaps his hands together, eyes sparkling madly. “Nice to see you, love? How is it in there? Comfortable?”

“No,” she answers hoarsely, defiantly. He only grins wider, then bounds toward the cage, coming up so close that his warm breath touches her cheek.

“I wasn’t talking about your accommodations,” he says in a low voice. He’s still smiling, but at this point it’s no more than bared teeth. He taps the side of his head, hard enough the Doctor can hear the thump. Rage, simmering just below the surface. “I was talking about in there.”

The Doctor doesn’t answer. She only stares at him, and knows her face is a rictus of agony, unable to be hidden. He’s pulled a thread and unraveled her entire life, torn out her insides to splay them bloody across his fingers. Delighted in his work, like a child who’s gone and painted all the walls of the house. 

She doesn’t want to face what she knows. No contemplation, no investigation. To look at the facts directly is to believe them. She shuffles them to the back of her mind, and pretends they don’t exist.

_Everything you know is a lie._

She doesn’t want to believe that he might be telling the truth.

When she doesn’t answer, the Master’s grin drops, swallowed by clenched-teeth fury.

“Silent game,” he spits, and leans in close enough to sear the hair off his beard. “Is that what you want to play, Doctor? Because if you want games, I have them. A very big one, in fact, that I’ve been setting up just for you.”

Dull alarm flares in her belly. Survival instinct. Stupid—she should be done with this. She knows his games and how he likes to make her hurt. She knows how to escape. She shouldn’t be scared.

But now, knocked to the ground by revelation, unable to rise to her feet, she’s helpless. All her fight is gone, except for the tone of her voice, the defiance in her eyes. She’s helpless, and she’s so, so aware of the fact.

“What…game?” she forces out, hating the words, hating that she’s playing along. And sure enough, the Master’s face lights up once more, his grin as wide as an exuberant child’s.

“Oh,” he breathes, and chuckles, harsh and low. “Oh, Doctor. You will _see_.”

She doesn’t have time to answer before he spins around and leaps off the low platform she’s been placed upon, cackling like a madman.

“Oh, oh, _oh_.” His laughter grows louder, manic. “Doctor! Let me tell you a few rules.”

He reaches the machine in the corner, whirls around, and jabs a finger at her. “Rule one. You exist. The Timeless Child. Endless regenerations. Unkillable.” His grin twists, drops. Then he turns his finger, and rams it back into his chest. “Rule two. I exist. Time Lord. Twelve regenerations.” His grin is entirely gone now, his lips stretched into an animal snarl. “Running a little low, if I’m being honest. But _you_ —” 

He drops his hand to his side and his eyes roam over her, dark and contemptuous. Disgusted, and that hurts even worse. Then he drops his chin and chuckles, shaking his head.

“You,” he says, “could help me out. A little bit of transference. A favor, if you will.”

The Doctor understands without saying. She stares at him, her hearts sinking slowly to her stomach, dread rising in her throat, and can’t bring herself to speak. The Master only eyes her, then snorts.

“Endless regenerations,” he mutters, then turns to his machine and starts to fiddle with buttons the Doctor can’t see. “Endless. Unfair, you know that? All that life, and you _waste_ it!” The heel of his palm slams against the machine. “You don’t even use it for anything fun. Sightseeing, that’s it. You know what I could do?”

He spins towards her and jabs a finger into his sternum. “ _Me?_ I could rule, Doctor. The entire universe. The entirety of time itself.”

The Doctor doesn’t answer this. She has nothing to say to him, and this is old news besides. She knows what he’s going to do, or the general idea at least. She won’t give him the satisfaction of quivering. 

When she doesn’t answer, he sucks in a snarled breath, letting it out shakily. Calming himself.

“Okay.” He shakes his head once, as if to clear it. “Got a little excited there. I apologize. It’s just, you know, when you have so much to _play with_ —” And his grin is back in place again, bright as ever and just as wild— “it can get a little overwhelming. You know, the prospect of eternal life. Well, once I siphon off all your regenerations.”

Finally, the Doctor finds her voice. Creaky, exhausted, she drags it out anyway, forcing defiance into her tone. “And how are you going to do that?”

“Oh—” The Master’s smile widens, his eyes crinkling, and he looks so giddy that the Doctor is almost curious. Almost. It fights against dread, heavy and coiled, and loses quickly.

“Oh,” he repeats, and laughs softly. “I don’t know, Doctor. How about we find out?”

Then, before she can question him, before she can even open her mouth, he reaches out and slams a lever down.

She screams.

————

Granny five is telling him a story. It’s his favorite story, the one about the universe that nobody wanted to play with, and even though he’s pretty sure his granny knows—shamefully—why he likes it, she has enough tact to avoid comment. Instead, she only uses her words and her gestures to weave a world before his eyes, and he listens, enraptured. 

When she finishes, he climbs into bed, vaguely, sheepishly proud that he’s climbing into a bed in a building and not in a barn, and thankful when his granny makes no comment. Instead she only tucks him in, smooths back his hair, and then retreats, pausing only to turn the lights off before she leaves.

Immediately, darkness plunges. He shivers, and pulls his blankets up to his chest, reminding himself that he’s not scared of the dark anymore. That there are other boys in the building, boys who could hear him if he cried, and therefore he won’t, because he doesn’t need to besides. There’s nothing in the dark that can hurt him. Nothing to be afraid of.

Except that’s precisely the problem. Nothing exists within the dark, because it swallows everything, and when he thinks about it too much, he can’t stand it. It’ll swallow him too, he’s sure of it, and even though he knows it’s stupid, he feels as if he knows exactly what that feels like. To be eaten by darkness. To fall into it and stay there, alone and abandoned and floating forever, with no help to be found.

He’s not scared. He repeats this to himself in his head over and over again, even though he’s shaking under the blankets, and he’s gone very cold. He’s not scared, because it’s stupid to be scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all.

And then, without warning, somebody is there.

The figure appears so suddenly that he jumps, letting out a cry that is quickly smothered by a rough hand to his mouth. He pulls away, but the person—no, it’s a man, in a plaid-purple vest and a dark shirt rolled up to his elbows—doesn’t let him go. Instead, another hand grips his shoulder, and the man leans down, his dark eyes boiling with hate, and looks into his eyes.

“Why are you here?” he hisses, and there’s so much rage in his voice that it’s scary. Furthermore, the boy doesn’t know how to answer. He makes a noise against the man’s palm, but the man’s other hand only squeezes his shoulder tightly, nails digging into his flesh.

“You go back here?” His eyes search the boy’s face, angry at something the boy can’t understand, and his grip is so tight it’s painful. “Of all the places, this is the memory it triggers?” 

The boy doesn’t know what to say, but abruptly the man releases the boy and straightens with a huff of impatience.

“First try,” he mutters. “It’s only the first try. We have plenty to go. C’mon.”

His hand shoots out and grabs the boy by the shoulder once more, dragging him forward, The boy protests with a yelp, but it’s swallowed by darkness, and a moment later the room itself is dissolving, melting into nothing, and before he can even scream in fear, the nothing takes him too.

————

The Doctor awakes with a gasp, a scream dying in her throat. She can’t remember what she was afraid of. The Master is watching her closely through the energy field, eyes inscrutable.

“Good morning, Doctor.” His grin spreads across his face, features shuffling into cruel victory. At what, the Doctor doesn’t know, but there’s something about it that rings false. A forcedness to it, hidden in the set of his jaw. “How are you feeling?”

“I—” The Doctor sucks in a breath, groping back to a memory, any memory. “I—you killed me. I—I—”

“Died?” The Master laughs. “Not quite. Oh, close for sure. A little touch and go there, even. But I know a thing or two about delaying pleasure.” He flashes her a grin, and hatred flashes up in her, white hot and blinding. Only the smell of ozone sparking off the cage she’s in keeps her from lunging at him.

“I hate you,” she tells him instead, and means it. He only laughs, loudly.

“My pleasure.” He touches to fingers to his forehead, a mock salute, then twists on his heel and starts once more to his machine.

“Regeneration energy.” He speaks loudly so his voice will carry, which is just as well. The Doctor’s ears are ringing, and she can’t figure out why. “Easy to siphon off, if you’ve got the tools. Oh, and you know how to almost-kill someone. Just enough to trigger the regeneration, not enough that they actually need it. Well, maybe they need it a little bit. But the thing is, I need it more.” He barks in laughter, then turns to the Doctor and clasps his hand together.

“Well, Doctor.” He’s rocking on his heels, excited as a kid at Christmas. “Ready for round two?”

“No,” the Doctor says, and then louder. “No, wait—” Scrabbling for a distraction, a plan, forcing the wheels in her head to turn when her whole brain feels as if it’s been lit on fire— “No, wait! I have a question.”

“Oh?” The Master settles back on his heels, hands pausing mid-churn. “I always welcome questions from the audience.”

“The Cybermen,” she gasps. It’s the first thing that pops into her head. “What have you done with them?”

“Them?” The Master’s eyebrows raise. Then he shrugs, rolling his shoulders. “Oh, I had a little talk with that ridiculous half Cyberman. Little, actually, is an apt description. Because, you know—” he chortles, hand pressing to his stomach— “I shrunk him.”

“Oh.” Relief sinks through the Doctor and she sags with it, her whole body going limp. One problem down. Now she just has to escape, and stop the Master. 

“Oh, and don’t worry about that nasty Cyberium.” The Master nods when she looks at him in weary confusion, his eyes glinting. “Yeah. Ugly stuff, isn’t it? I mean, I had to swallow it—” He barks in laughter, shakes his head— “But I’m not going to _do_ anything with it. Until, you know, you’re dead.”

The Cyberium. Inside the Master. The Doctor sucks in a breath and clenches her jaw, trying to ignore the desperate worry gnawing at her. Stuck in here, she’s running out of options. She has to get out and find a way to stop him before—

“Ooh, what a look on your face!” The Master laughs, then leans back, settling against his machine. His elbow brushes the lever. “I love that look on you. Calculating. Almost clever. You’re trying to escape, aren’t you?”

When the Doctor doesn’t say anything, his grin drops to a pout, and he shakes his head in disappointment. “Oh, c’mon, Doctor. It’s _me_. You could beat _me_. Look at me! I’m clumsy. I drop things. Don’t even know where I left my tissue compression eliminator.” 

He jumps as if suddenly remembering, and in a faux panic, pats his pockets. “Oh dear! I really don’t think I—”

His elbow rams against the lever, and the Master’s head jerks up, a look of sheepish apology upon his face.

“So clumsy,” he whispers. 

Then the volts hit.

—————

Grace is dead. Less than a night into this body, and a person is dead. She tries to tell herself that it’s not her fault.

Then again, she also told herself that one more life wouldn’t kill anyone.

“I’m sorry,” is all she can say, and she says it a few times, maybe too many, because eventually the young lad—Ryan, that was his name—gives her an odd look and says “it’s okay” in a tone that’s maybe too gentle.

The Doctor shuts up. 

She goes to the funeral a few days later, and stands in the back because she’s pretty sure she doesn’t belong there among the grieving, not when Grace was never really hers at all. She’d barely known her, if she’s being honest, and her death hurts, yes, but her attendance has the air of an overly-guilty friend, and she hates it. She’s not faking it, is the thing, but they don’t know that.

She doesn’t bother them anyway. 

“Hurts, does it?”

The Doctor is standing in the foyer, waiting for Ryan’s dad—Ryan had given up, but she’s trying to be optimistic—when a new almost-familiar voice sounds behind her. She turns, and it suddenly occurs to her that she’s dreaming.

“O?” 

O doesn’t look like O. He’s wearing a strange purple outfit, for one thing, and he’s got his hands in his pockets, and when the Doctor says his name, he grins and saunters up beside her with an air she can’t place and doesn’t like at all.

“Sure,” he says, but there’s a truth hiding behind his teeth she can’t put her finger on. “Call me O. Why are you here, Doctor?”

“I—” Dreaming, she recalls. None of this matters. “It’s Grace’s funeral.”

“No, it’s your mind.” He’s close enough to the glass windows that his breath is making fog on the panes. He reaches out and paints a finger through the condensation, leaving a frowny face in its wake. “What I’m wondering is why I’m not throwing you far back enough. This is a close memory, all things considered.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s pain creeping up her spine, over her skin, but she can’t locate the source. It feels like electricity. Her hearts are pounding a drumbeat in her ears. 

O chuckles and shakes his head. “Of course you don’t.” He lifts his gaze to the ceiling and purses his lips, bemused. “This is a waste of time, you know. These memories, this death. Well, almost death. Not that it matters.” He drops his gaze and turns to the Doctor, his hands in his pockets. His gaze is unyielding and impossible to decipher, except for the wanting. He wants something very much indeed, and it’s so familiar that it sends a sense of Deja Vu washing over the Doctor.

“You’re dreaming, Doctor,” he says. “Well, you’re dying, but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point then?” she asks, and as she speaks, she feels her left heart go out. Her hand flies to her chest, her breath sticking in her throat.

O is watching her, a faint smile upon his face. It drops the moment she sinks to her knees, shins banging against the floor.

“The point,” he says, and steps forward, over her, then leans down and grabs her by the collar, dragging her close. “Is that you’re not proving _anything_.”

Then he jerks her forward, and she looses her balance and falls, but before her nose can connect with the carpeting, she’s gone.

—————

She wakes up, the ghost of a heart attack aching in her chest, and nearly falls to her knees. She manages to catch herself just in time, shaky and unstable, and then slowly straightens. When she looks up, the Master is watching her from across the room, his gaze hard.

“Useless,” he spits, then turns around and jabs something into the machine. The Doctor flinches, expecting another shock, but nothing comes. He only continues to tap—letters or numbers or symbols, she doesn’t know—then turns around and leans back against the machine, this time mercifully far from the lever.

“What’s—useless,” she croaks. Her hand is half-forgotten on her chest, and even though her left heart has started again, she can feel the terrible, squeezing pain of its stopping still in her chest, fading far too slowly.

The Master eyes her for a long moment. Then, he snorts.

“You are,” he says and settles back farther, crossing his arms over his chest. “I mean, you’ve always been a fat lot of nothing, Doctor, but you’re being especially useless today.”

“What?” she forces out, every breathe a stitch in her chest, “not enough regeneration energy for you?”

The Master doesn’t immediately answer. His eyes roam over her face, frustrated though she can’t fathom why, then he shrugs.

“Always worth another try,” he says, and slams down the lever.

The Doctor screams.

————

“I can’t believe you,” Koschei spits, and throws his cards down, scattering them across the table. Half of them flip over, enough for Theta to catch his dismal hand. He glances at his own perfect deck, and winces in sympathy. Well, a little sympathy.

“Better luck next time,” he says, and lays his cards down, then reaches out to snag the processing unit they’d been betting over. It’s exactly what Theta needs to fix up the warp drive they’d discovered in a dump last time they’d snuck out of the city. Koschei was the one who’d found it, true, but Theta was the one who would fix it, which meant that by rights it was his. Mostly.

Koschei is still stomping off, already a good two meters away, his back turned and his hands in fists at his sides. 

“Oh, c’mon,” Theta calls, once he has the processing unit safely in his pocket. If he’s not careful, Koschei will just steal it back. Might still try. “It’s not like I won’t let you use it.”

“Let me?” Koschei spins around, his face a mess of disbelief. He jabs a finger at his own chest. “Let _me_? After I found it? Are you kidding?”

“I mean, we both found it,” Theta hedges, which isn’t entirely true. They’d split up, and looked in two different areas of the dump. Koschei was the one who had gotten lucky. 

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.” Koschei shakes his head in disbelief, slow and mocking. “Sure, Theta. You know what? You really are spoiled. Think everything is yours.”

In a flash, Theta is on his feet. “I do not!” he shoots back, anger rearing up in him. “For Rassilon’s sake, just because I’ve got a lot of grandmothers—”

“You mean guardians?” Koschei sneers, arms crossed. “Seriously, are they even related to you. They’re just watching your every move to make sure you don’t get hurt, because you’re so special—”

“Shut _up!”_ Without warning, Theta launches himself at Koschei, sending him into the dirt floor of they barn they’re hiding out in. “I am not!”

“Yes you are!” Koschei laughs, which is quite the feat, with his mouth full of dirt. He always laughs when Theta gets mad at him. There’s something about it that delights him, that makes him laugh and laugh and laugh, no matter how Theta tries to shut him up. Sometimes, Theta wonders if he goads him on purpose.

“Shut up!” He grins Koschei’s face into the dirt, who only laughs louder and louder, manic glee edging into his voice, until, with a jolt, a hand grabs the back of Theta’s collar and yanks him to his feet.

“He started it!” Theta is already gabbling—he hates getting in trouble, and especially hates getting in trouble with his grannies—and catches a split second of dark fury in Koschei’s gaze before rough hands spin him around, bringing him face to face with the interloper.

It’s a man, with a plaid-purple vest and dark hair flopping over furious eyes. Theta doesn’t recognize him at all.

“Who are _you?”_ he asks, only for the open palm of the man’s hand to collide with his cheek. Theta cries out and stumbles back, and behind him hears a snigger.

“Shut up,” the man growls, and before Theta can dart away, reaches out and grips his shoulder, so hard it brings tears to his eyes. “Why are you remembering this? Why the hell aren’t you going further back?”

“Let go of me!” Theta cries out, blind to all but the building pain in his shoulder, which is now spreading impossibly throughout the rest of his body, licking like flames at his insides— “Please!”

But the man doesn’t let him go. Instead he draws him closer, studying him, searching for something Theta can’t understand.

“Why is it you?” he says in a low voice. “Why you?”

Theta can barely understand him. The pain has encompassed him entirely, burning him alive, and he can barely summon the strength to plead. “Please!” he chokes out in a sob. “Please—!”

The man makes a noise of disgust deep in his throat and shoves him away. Theta stumbles, trips backwards and falls, but before he hits the ground, it disappears.

—————

The Doctor wakes with a cry, her whole body alight with pain, and crumples to the floor. She doesn’t hit the energy field on the way down; it’s only several seconds later that she realizes it’s not activated.

Not that it matters. She can’t even move. Pain has paralyzed her, and even as it fades, exhaustion takes its place. She couldn’t run if she tried. She can barely move her head slightly to look up.

The Master is standing over her, his hands curled into fists, his chest heaving with fury.

“Why is it you?” he says, and the Doctor has no idea what he’s talking about. “How can it be you?”

She doesn’t answer him, mainly because she doesn’t know how. She hurts and she’s tired, and all she wants is to sleep. No—not to sleep. She wants something deeper, so deep it aches through her bones, quiet and weary and small. It’s the feeling of a child who wants their parent, or a soldier stranded in a far off land. Of a lover left alone.

It’s the feeling that she just wants to go home.

But there’s no home left, and even the home that she once thought to be hers isn’t, so the Doctor lies on the ground, half curled in a ball, and wonders if this is what it feels like to be broken. She doesn’t feel like resisting. She doesn’t even feel like getting up. She only feels alone, and wishes, with the shameful longing of a child left alone in the dark, that she wasn’t.

The Master watches her, and when she doesn’t move, nudges her with the toe of her shoe. 

“C’mon, Doctor.” His tone is mocking. “Up and at ‘em.”

She doesn’t move. His shoe nudges her again, and stupidly, she has the urge to reach out and wrap her arms around his ankle, to pull him down to her level and never let go. Once, a very long time ago, he would have comforted her when she cried. Once, she didn’t feel alone.

She resists the urge. After a moment, he draws his foot away, and she watches his shoes turn, then scamper down the platform. He’s singing as he goes.

“Wake up, put on my make up…” He reaches his machine and does a little spin, showboating— “And pick the rake up, and rake my hair…”

He finishes the spin and shoots out a hand, grasping the lever. The Doctor squeezes her eyes shut, and only catches the last words, discordant and off tune.

“I’m starting to feel like I’ve got a brain problem situation, on my hands…”

Pain tears through her body, and she knows nothing.

—————

By the time both suns have set, Theta and Koschei have managed to slip out of the Academy, and into the rocky, empty plains outside the city. It’s perfect timing; the empty landscape stretches before them, and endless stars sparkle throughout the sky, a tapestry of diamonds. Theta looks up, and his breath catches.

“You okay?” Koschei comes up beside him, one hand brushing against his. His eyes are wide, concerned. For a moment, Theta can’t figure out why. Then he realizes—the dark. Koschei thinks he’s scared.

“I’m fine,” he assures him, and ignores the warmth that flushes through his hearts. He can only pray that it’s too dark to see the blush rising to his cheeks.

“Yeah?” Koschei purses his lips, slight worry still in his eyes. He’s been like that lately, Theta’s noticed. Attentive—protective almost. Like he’s watching out for Theta.

Like he cares.

But of course he cares. It’s only when they were younger that there was that stupid competition between them. Between everything they did, until they got to the Academy and Theta immediately got sent to the bottom of the class. Couldn’t focus, they said. Too jumpy, too anxious, never made enough effort to get the grades he needed. It hurt—it still hurts—but it smoothed out the competition between them. Now, Koschei helps Theta, and things are okay.

Better than okay, maybe. 

“Yeah,” Theta says, and before his courage fails him, reaches out to grasp Koschei’s hand. “C’mon.”

Koschei yelps in surprise as Theta pulls him along, but he allows himself to be dragged, and soon they’re running side by side, hands held tight, whooping through the darkness and laughing as they trip over rocks and their own feet. Theta loves to run, for reasons he can’t quite explain. Koschei doesn’t really get it, but he’ll run with him anyway.

They stop, breathless, after what seems like ages, though they’ve barely made a dent in the distance stretching before them, and flop onto rocky ground. Close enough they’re practically touching, and Theta can feel the heat radiating between them. Hear the quiet puffs of their breathing, intertwined. They’re flat on their back, staring at the stars, but Theta feels like he’s looking at Koschei. 

“Look at them,” Koschei marvels. “Look at how many there are. How many do you think have life?”

“Tons of them,” Theta replied. “Seriously loads, I bet. It’d take a lifetime to see them all.”

Koschei laughs, high and clear in the thin night air. “Oh, more than that. Twelve regenerations _at least_.”

“Or more,” Theta responds. “I bet we could, though. See them all. Or at least most of them.”

He’s not looking at Koschei, but he feels the shift when he raises his head, turns to look at him.

“We?” he asks. It’s quiet, and there’s something undefinable there. Theta’s breath stops in his chest.

“Uh—yeah,” he whispers, voice small. Suddenly, it’s too precarious to be loud. “We.”

Koschei is still looking at him, and Theta doesn’t have the courage to turn his head. The words hang between them, though they’re too close to really let anything hang between them. Koschei’s elbow is pressing against Theta’s arm. Every inch of his body is alive, and for it, he can’t move.

“Theta,” Koschei says after a moment, quiet, and then again, louder. “Theta.”

“Yeah?” He might as well be burning holes in the sky. When he answers, Koschei nudges him.

“Theta,” he begins, and his voice is so dithering and nervous that Theta’s hearts fill and overflow right there. “You know you can look at—”

He doesn’t have time to finish his sentence, because right then, Theta rolls over and kisses him. Clumsy and awkward, and their noses bump, and it’s so silly he wants to laugh, but it’s serious too, and that restrains him, right up until the moment they break apart, and Koschei falls into his shoulder with breathy laugh.

“I’ve been waiting for that for ages,” he gasps, and his voice is so full of utter delight that Theta laughs too, half out of relief and half out of pure happiness, because he can’t really believe it. Didn’t think he had it in him, except maybe he did after all.

“I wasn’t sure,” Theta answers, a little timid just because he’s a little in love and he’s still not sure what it all means yet, but then Koschei grins at him, stupidly happy, and he knows that it’s all okay, for sure.

“I was,” Koschei says, and then he leans in to kiss him again, and all Theta can think is that they really don’t espouse the value of linear time as much as they should at the Academy, because he can’t imagine these moments happening any other way. It’s wonderful, and perfect, and he’s so caught up that he doesn’t notice the quiet crackle of footsteps until it’s too late, and even then, he doesn’t have time to spin around, caught and embarrassed, because the world is silently dissolving, and he with it.

————

She wakes up with tears on her cheeks and a sob in caught in her throat. She doesn’t let it out. She sniffles, and swallows it, then opens bleary eyes and stares at the Master’s shoes. They shift, then step closer, close enough she can smell the rubber and dust.

“Vacation time is over, Doctor,” he says. There’s something different in his voice, angry and stiff and fragile, like a windowpane about to shatter. “It’s no time for daydreams.”

She only stares at his shoes, which are starting to blur, and feels very much as if she’s just woken up from a wonderful dream, wrapped in the bitter taste of tears and nostalgia and a longing she won’t admit, not for the life of her.

“Go away,” she mumbles, and curls inward, her eyes fluttering shut.

There’s a sigh, and then a rustle of clothing as the Master squats down beside her, balancing on his heels. For a moment, there’s silence, and she can feel him studying her.

“What do you want from me?” she asks him, voice loggy with tears. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

“Oh, Doctor.” He lets out a low chuckle. It rumbles deep within his chest, comforting in a way she hates. She hears a rustle as he shifts, then feels his hand gently brush her forehead. “You’re so much more fun alive.”

His fingers run briefly through her hair, a familiar and comforting movement and she hates it, she _hates it_. She jerks away from him with a snarl, and he laughs, snatching his hand back.

“Tetchy, tetchy.” He hums then straightens, knees popping, clothes rustling. She hears him stretch and sigh, rolling his shoulders. “Alright. Time for round—well, I lost count, actually.”

He laughs, and starts to move off, only for a weak hand to reach out, wrapping around his ankle.

He looks down in faux surprise, then skips away, shaking her off.

“Fairly weak, as opposition goes,” he says and chuckles. “I mean, most you’ve shown so far. Guess that’s something. Sort of.”

She doesn’t respond to this. Instead, she only says, “You’re not siphoning regeneration energy.”

He’s already half-turning, but at her words, he pauses. Then, he turns back around.

“Not sure you’re in your right mind, love. You’re spouting nonsense.”

She doesn’t rise to his bait. Instead, she lets out a heavy sigh, then raises her head, and pins him with a weak, watery glare.

“You’re not taking my regeneration energy,” she says. As clear as she can. Forcefully, almost. “I would know. You’re only—you’re only—”

He raises an eyebrow and steps closer, then leans down and plants his hands on his knees. “I’m what, dear? Speak clearly, now.”

“Trying to find something,” she spits out, and knows immediately that she’s hit upon it. His eyes widen, only for a second, then his expression snaps back into a sneer.

“I’m not trying to find anything,” he hisses, and he’s so angry that she knows she’s right. “I’ve already got you, Doctor.”

Then, before she can gather her thoughts enough to come up with a proper retort, he swings around and bounces down the platform, where his machine awaits.

“Tally-ho!” he hollers, and with a gleeful grin, skids to a halt in front of the machine. The Doctor barely has enough time to wince and hunch her shoulders before pain rips through her body.

She’s out before she even has time to scream.

—————

“Theta, _c’mon_.” Koschei tugs at his sleeve, dragging Theta reluctantly down the hallway. “I promise you, you can take this test. If I helped you study—”

“I’ll fail, Koschei.” Theta is obstinate, might as well be a boulder in the middle of the hall for all he budges. “I won’t—”

“You will,” Koschei growls, and pulls him hard enough to send him staggering. “You can’t just—”

“No!” A new voice roars behind Theta, and he spins around, just as a man he doesn’t recognize bears down on him, grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him hard enough he sees stars.

“Why are you here?” he bellows, fury painting his expression. He’s still shaking Theta, who yelps and struggles against a grip which might as well be iron. “Why do you keep coming back to this? Why won’t you show me the truth?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Theta cries, dizzy with the shaking and the force of a grip he can’t get out of no matter how much he tries. “I don’t know—”

“YES YOU DO!” the man shouts, and his voice rings down the hallway, loud as thunder. His voice stuns Theta into silence. It must stun the man into silence too, for his jaw snaps shut and the shaking stops, and he stares at Theta, wonderstruck.

“You don’t, do you?” he asks, and frightened, Theta can only shake his head. The man lets go of him without warning and strokes his scrubbly beard, something indecipherable shining in his eyes.

“I might be wrong,” he breathes, and it sounds like a prayer. “I might have been wrong. You can’t even find the memories. You don’t even have them, no matter what I do.”

Theta stares at him, confused and yet too scared to try to make a getaway. The man is crazy, he can see it in the eyes. There’s something frighteningly familiar about it, and it makes him sick to his stomach, though he can’t say why. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he pleads, and the man only shakes his head again, only now a grin is spreading across his face.

“You don’t,” he whispers, and his entire face lights up with the words. “You _don’t._ ” 

Theta shakes his head, and opens his mouth to add something else, possibly another assurance that he doesn’t, indeed, know what is happening, but something stops him. Pain, specifically, which starts in his chest and spreads quickly to his limbs, numbing the tips of his fingers. In moments, he is paralyzed.

“I—” he tries to say, and instead chokes on the words, blinks and sees blackness, and that’s when he realizes the entire world is dissolving around him. The entire world, except for the man, who steps forward but doesn’t try to help as Theta chokes on indescribable pain.

“I need to know,” he says, his voice low, and Theta still doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “I need to be sure.”

Theta falls to his knees, but doesn’t stay there long. He no longer has control of his body; in moments, he drops to the floor, twitching with pain, foam filling his mouth, dying, he’s sure he’s dying—

The man steps over him, his gaze alight with wonder.

“One more time,” he assures Theta, who can only stare blankly up at him, lost in a sea of pain. “One more time, and then I’ll know.”

Theta can’t speak, but it doesn’t matter. In moments, the world is gone, and he with it, disappeared into nothing.

—————

The Doctor wakes up to gentle fingers combing through her hair, and the soft hum of a familiar voice.

The Master doesn’t shift as she awakens. His fingers only stutter for a moment, then resume their stroking. He continues to hum, a tune she vaguely recognizes. 

She needs to move away. She doesn’t want to. She’s lost and sick and hurting, her body wrung far past its limits, and her mind scattered to pieces. She can’t remember the order of things—her life is a jumble in her head. Koschei is running his fingers through her hair, and it’s wrong, she knows, but she can’t remember why.

She hates him—no, she wants to hate him, but she can’t remember why. Only moments ago, she kissed him under a sky full of uncountable stars. Or no—moments ago, she was huddling under her covers, trying not to be afraid of the dark.

No—she was at the Academy. Or no—

“Alright, love?” His voice is kind, and very, very familiar. It’s the voice he used when she needed his help during class, it’s the voice he used to make sure she wasn’t scared when they escaped into the dark. It’s the voice he used when she needed him.

_Nobody can protect you except me_ , it says.

_Nobody can hurt you except me_ , reads the other side of the coin.

“Get off me,” she mutters with all the strength she doesn’t want to muster, and he only laughs. Victorious. He’s gotten what he wants, maybe, only his laugh is edged with fear, which means he’s not sure he has it.

“You could use some medical attention,” he replies, and anger flashes through her, only she’s too weak to use it.

“Because of you,” she shoots back instead, but he just chuckles lowly. 

“I had to check something,” he says, and she wants to ask what that is, but thinks she knows. She doesn’t say it.

“Did you find it?”

“Maybe,” he says, and his fingers pause in her hair. Then they resume, and she can’t help the sigh that radiates throughout her chest.

He feels like home, inasmuch as she has one. He’s always felt like home, even when they were boys, because when she didn’t have anybody, she had him. She was so sure of him, right up until it was irrevocably stupid to be, and then she still wavered, because she couldn’t stand a world without him.

She’ll never admit it, but she’s not sure she can live without him. Especially not now, when she has nothing else.

“What were you looking for?”

He hesitates once more, then lets out a sigh, and withdraws his fingers from her hair. Instead, they rest lightly upon her shoulder, only a whisper of touch.

She’s lying in his lap, she realizes suddenly, or very nearly, her head propped in the crook of his elbow. Momentarily taken care of. Watched over, because he is hers and she is his.

_Nobody can protect you except me._

“I had to know,” he whispers, voice rough. Almost pleading. “I needed it. You can’t be the Timeless Child, Theta. You can’t. We grew up together. We’re—”

He cuts off with a harsh breath, but she knows what he was going to say. He swallows, she can hear it, then continues.

“You should thank me,” he says, his voice brisk and hard. “I know I hurt you, but I had to. It was for your sake, so you could know, so—”

“—so I wouldn’t be more special than you,” she completes for him, and anger flashes in her belly, old anger, held since she was a child. In a moment they’re boys again, and he taunting her in an old barn, sneering at how special she is. Digging at an insecurity she can’t describe, a fear she doesn’t want to name, because to do so is to acknowledge a truth she doesn’t want to face.

Always treated different. The boy, crying in the barn. The student at the Academy, too jumpy, too anxious. Couldn’t fit in, couldn’t do without help. Seven grandmothers to keep an eye on him, for no discernible reason.

Different. Special. Koschei had never been able to stand it.

The Master cuts off at her words, and for a moment there’s only his breathing, heavy and hard, like he’s just run a race.

“You’re not,” he says after a moment, the words nearly spat. “You aren’t, Doctor. You always liked to parade around but—but you’re nothing, in the end. Just another Time Lord who barely passed at the Academy. You _needed_ me.”

“I didn’t,” the Doctor whispers, which is a lie, so she quickly amends it. “I don’t.” She sucks in a brush, then pushes his arm away, forces herself into a sitting position. His arms fall from her, and he doesn’t stop her.

“I don’t need you,” she repeats, and as he stares, uncomprehending, clambers clumsily to her feet. For a beat, he only watches. Then it must hit what she’s trying to do, for he scrambles to his feet as well. 

“Don’t,” he growls, but she only laughs at him and takes a step backward, nearly falling of the platform.

“Stop me,” she taunts, and lowers herself carefully, staggering to the ground. He takes a step forward, but he’s still only watching, convinced that she won’t do the very thing she’s about to do. 

“You wouldn’t,” he says, and takes another step forward, just as she takes another step back. “You wouldn’t do that to yourself. It won’t even prove anything. You’re nothing, Doctor. Just a mediocre Time Lord.”

The Doctor only nods, and takes another step backwards, this time close enough to put her in proximity to the machine. The Master’s eyes track her movement, then he snarls and jumps down from the platform.

“Touch that and you’ll die,” he says. She just laughs through cracked lips and shakes her head.

“You mean the exact thing you’ve been doing to me?” she asks. He shakes his head.

“No.” She takes a step backward and he mirrors her, taking a step forward. “I mean it, Doctor. Don’t touch that lever.”

She doesn’t even know if it’ll work. She doesn’t know if it’ll tell her anything about her past, whether it’ll break through the block on her memories or not. She doesn’t even know if those memories exist at all. 

But the bond between them might as well be a rope on fire for how it burns them both, either end, double-sided. He needs to win, but she has to make him lose.

She reaches out, and places her hand on the lever.

In a flash, he has an object out of his pocket and in his hand, held stiff-armed out in front of him. It takes her a moment—her vision is still blurry, her brain scattered—to focus enough to realize what it is.

A small, hand held bomb, attached to a miniature Cyberman. She doesn’t get it.

“What’s that supposed to do?” she calls hoarsely to him, her fingers twitching on the lever. He laughs, loud and desperate and, she realizes, slightly insane.

“Oh, did you not know?” He steps forward, the Cyberman still held out in front of him. Within a few steps, he’s close enough that she can tell who it is: the lone Cyberman, useless now in death. No harm anymore. Or so she thought.

“Your little friend,” he taunts, his grin wide and mean, “has a toy inside of him. A trick, if you will. See, he has this _tiny_ little particle inside his chest—” he brings two fingers together to demonstrate— “that, when set off, will wipe out all life on a planet. Every. Single. Lifeform.” His grin stretches even wider. “You get what I’m saying?”

She stares at him. Her hearts are pounding wildly in her chest. Her fingers, now sweaty, are slipping on the lever.

“You wouldn’t,” she says. He shakes his head, once.

“Oh, I very much would.”

“Why?” she croaks, and he laughs. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” he sneers. “Why should I let you prove me wrong, Doctor? Why would I ever let you win?”

She shakes her head, wide and frantic. She can’t seem to remove her hand from the lever—it’s as if it’s glued on. “That’s not winning. It never is. It doesn’t _mean_ anything, Koschei. The Timeless Child, whoever I actually am—it’s just—”

“Victory,” he snarls, stepping closer, and her hand, clammy with sweat though it is, is stuck on the lever. The rest of her is slipping instead, her entire life sliding out from under her, even though she knows she should expect this. The Master, her best friend, her first love, the only person she has left, who would rather die than let her be anything better than him.

_Nobody gets to hurt me but you._

She’s not sure what hurts more—knowing what was done to her, or watching her best friend toss her away because of it.

“Please don’t,” she says. His eyebrows raise, and he tilts his chin towards the lever.

“Take your hand away.”

She shakes her head. She’s not sure why. “I won’t.”

The Master’s face contorts, and he whips the Cyberman down, then steps forward, so close she can every speck in his dark eyes.

“Why?” he hisses, his eyes roaming over her face, searching for understanding, for an answer, for anything. “Why won’t you let me win? What the hell do you care?”

She only shakes her head again, all explanations stuck in her throat. It’s because it doesn’t make sense, and she knows it. Because they’re tied together with a rope aflame, both parties burning and neither side willing to relinquish the tie. Because she would rather burn it all to the ground before letting go, and she knows he would do the same. To the death, or so do they part.

“Because I hate you,” she says, and it’s true and it’s not, but he gets her anyway. “And all you do is hurt me.”

He stares at her, then sucks in a breath and lets it out in one long, angry sigh.

“And what about me?” he says. “What about when you hurt me? What’s the difference?”

The Doctor stares at him, and distantly, feels the cool metal of the lever underneath her grip. Her hand might as well be glued to it—she couldn’t let go if she tried.

“The difference,” she says, and she hates every word and relishes them at the same time, because it’s the denial of victory, it’s the _winning_ — “is that I don’t do it on purpose.”

She slams the lever down, and watches his eyes grow wide, hears his snarled “NO!” and in the split second before everything goes black, sees his finger move to the trigger.

Then, pain crashes over her, and the world drops away.

—————

He hates the dark.

He’s in the barn again, marooned on a filthy straw mattress, huddling under thin sheets, because he can’t bear to face the other boys in the building. Not like this, not when he’s scared. Not when the nothing encroaches, threatening to swallow him whole, and all he can feel is lost and alone, like he’ll never be found. 

He’s not sure where the feeling comes from. He only knows it intimately, like a child might know a mother’s touch, and though he tries his best to push it away during the day, in the night it always wins. He can’t fight it because he’s only a boy, young and alone and afraid, and he cries too much to have friends, and the caretakers don’t even like him. All he has is seven grannies, who watch over him like a hawk, as if looking for something he doesn’t have.

Only granny five tells stories, and she’s not even hear now, because he’s supposed to be growing up. Supposed to be a big kid, not a baby, and if he wants to make a Time Lord, or even a soldier, he’ll have to learn to shape up. He’ll have to be better than the dark.

But the darkness always wins.

He tries not to cry loudly, but he still cries, and he lives in fear that the boys in the house will somehow hear. That they’ll find him out and then tease him, which will probably be even worse than what they do now, which is ignore him. He’s too strange and weak and different, and he wishes more than anything that he could fit in, but all he feels is alone.

Alone, and afraid.

“Hello.”

He jerks upright with a cry of fear— _this is it, this is the darkness, come to eat him right up_ —only to, confusingly enough, come face to face with a boy.

Even worse. This is it, he realizes sinkingly. Now he’ll be laughed at forever. Dread sweeps through him.

“I wasn’t crying,” he says immediately, but the other boy just grins.

“Yeah you were,” he says, and plops down on the mattress like he owns it. “Why?”

“I—” Briefly, he considers lying. It would be easier. But nothing comes to his mind, and now he’s hesitated and bungled it. “I’m scared. Of—of the dark.”

“Really?” Confusion flashes across the boy’s face, and his heart sinks. The boy won’t understand. Nobody else does. He’ll just laugh, or scoff, and then leave him alone again.

But the confusion passes, and then the boy shrugs. “Okay. I mean, weird, but okay. Is that why you sleep out in the barn?”

“Uh—” Again, he hesitates, this time from sheer surprise. This isn’t going how he expected. “Yes.”

“It’s darker out here, you know,” the boy says. He can only shrug, unwilling to explain. Oddly enough, the boy seems to except this.

“You know, I was wondering about you.” The boy grins, and it sparkles in the dim light. “Because you always slept out here. Kind of cool, sleeping in a barn. Like camping. I’ve always wanted to go camping.”

“Me too,” he says immediately, then pauses, and checks his enthusiasm. “I mean, well—I really like the stars. And you can’t see them with too many buildings.”

“I know.” The boy nods slowly, approvingly. “Hey, you know what? Sometime, we should go camping. I bet we could sneak out. Caretakers wouldn’t even notice.”

“Uh—” He gulps, hesitating. In the dark? In the nothing? Still, the boy is watching him, and he doesn’t want to disappoint. “Yeah. That would be amazing.”

“Right?” The boy flashes him a grin. “Let’s do it. Hey, you think I could sleep out in the barn too?”

“Uh—” The boy is on his feet all of sudden, examining the straw mattress, the creaky floorboards, the wooden walls. “Maybe?”

“Cool.” The boy circles around the mattress, then turns back and shoots him a smile. “You’re alright, you know. The other boys said you weren’t, but you are. You could sleep inside.”

“I—I don’t want to.” Except all of a sudden, he isn’t that scared anymore. Not now, not with company, not when this boy is smiling at him. “I mean—thanks. I didn’t know you knew me.”

“I didn’t. But now I do.” The boy finishes his quick examination of the barn, then turns back and sticks out a hand. “Nice to meet you, though.”

“Thank you.” Gingerly, he takes the hand. “What’s your name?”

The boy pumps his hand up and down, grinning like a loon. “Koschei. You can call me Koschei. What can I call you?”

“Uh—” It’s definitely a nickname, and all of a sudden he wants one too. His own name sounds boring, tame in the face of Koschei’s bright smiles and quick tongue. “Theta. Call me Theta.”

“Alright.” Koschei withdraws his hand and tucks both arms across his chest, giving him a big grin. “You know what? I feel like we’re going to be friends.”

——————

The Doctor wakes with a start, and for a moment, doesn’t know where she is. She’s not lying on the platform; she’s not upright in the cage. She’s slumped against something, which she realizes moments later to be a machine, the Master’s machine, and somebody’s elbow is digging into her side.

Elbow. The machine. The Master. The Doctor straightens, then lunges for him.

She doesn’t even have to reach. He’s lying in front of her, flat on his back, one arm draped across her, the other on the floor. Two feet away lies the lone Cyberman in miniature, the figurine utterly fried. The bomb is gone, disappeared into the shrapnel that now litters the floor around them.

The Master’s eyes are wide open, sightless and staring. His mouth is slightly open, his jaw slack. His head lies in a puddle of the Cyberium, a thin, roiling silver.

“Koschei—” The Doctor grips him by the shoulders, drags him upright and cradles him to her chest, so angry she almost can’t feel her hearts breaking. “Koschei, wake up you absolute prick—”

He doesn’t wake up. He doesn’t move. He flops against her chest, his eyes still open, his body limp, his gaze unseeing, and she knows the truth but doesn’t want to admit it. The particle had to have killed him too fast to regenerate. So fast, in fact, that she might not have regenerated either, except that she’d been caught in a machine meant to almost-kill her. 

Or perhaps she just wasn’t killable. 

“I’ll kill you,” she sobs into his chest, and of course he doesn’t answer. He can’t, because he had to win, even if that meant killing himself. Even if that meant killing her. 

Both of them, too quick on the draw. Ready to destroy themselves, just to destroy each other. 

He couldn’t let her win, not even once. Couldn’t let her be different, couldn’t let her be special, even if it was the truth. Because that wasn’t they way things worked between them—or maybe it was. Perhaps the Doctor, eternally different and alone, really was eternally different and alone. Maybe even Koschei, the one who had found her, the one who had saved her from the dark, couldn’t change that.

Maybe she was only a boy, crying in the dark, and the only difference between then and now was time and age and wisdom which hadn’t taught her anything. Still the outcast, abandoned and alone. Even her best friend, her first love, her savior and her worst enemy, couldn’t change that.

Instead, he had abandoned her. And for that, she could never forgive him.

\----

_It's a new year  
Careful what you pack  
There's no going back  
She's lost from the beginning, she's the new girl_

**Author's Note:**

> Does this make any sense? Maybe?
> 
> So the Doctor - why she survived - I decided to leave ambiguous. Did she survive because the machine 'almost killed' her at the same moment that the Master pressed the trigger? Or, for the Timeless Child, supposedly unkillable, would she survive in a death where even regeneration isn't possible? WHO KNOWS! I certainly don't.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this fic, and hopefully don't think I'm like.....super messed up. Also, comments and kudos are always appreciated!


End file.
